Doing the iPod Shuffle Blind

My wife recently finished a book for National Braille Press about her experiences learning to use the iPod® Shuffle®. The project came about because, as the Shuffle is the only iPod that isn't menu-driven, it's the only iPod which is really accessible to the blind. The book is in a journal form (which, oddly, I once described as a"reverse blog"), taking the reader through her initial investigations, set-up, experimentation, investigation of alternatives, and some of the really interesting sidelines which have developed. Short form: it can be done, but Apple still has a way to go before they really get accessible (note: Microsoft is not much better, up front, but they dominate the market so all the accessibility toolmakers focus on making MS junk work). It took considerable contortions to make the controlling software accessible; the online music store is very hard to navigate; there are more accessible programs for music library and mp3 player management but iPod"doesn't play well with others." Since the book came out -- and in at least one case as a result of the book -- companies and individuals have been working to make things better.

One of the interesting things she discovered, right about the time that the rest of the world was noticing it, was"podcasting," which looks pretty revolutionary until you describe it as"audio blogging" (which hardly anyone does). In fact, her next book project (along with the magic trick set adaptation) is going to be a collaboration with the podcaster who interviewed her. I'm hoping they'll tuck a bit about old-fashioned text blogging in there, too. E-mail was a revolutionary tool for the blind. I thought that blogging, like e-mail, would be very attractive to blind computer users, but they seem to have largely stayed out ofthe game until podcasting came along.

Podcasting is an interesting phenomenon: it lacks the searchability and density of textblogs, but it is more personal (it can also be more interactive; as more than one person can share a podcast in a way that's very difficult to do in text blogs), more aesthetically varied (though RIAA is going to have something to say about your choice of background music) and it uses a whole different set of sense-inputs. Actually, the ability to listen and do something else accounts, I suspect, for some of the popularity of both podcasts and audiobooks; even my wife uses the iPod while exercise biking and folding laundry, and the mp3 player/audiobook revolution has really expanded her reading time. We've often thought that the Described Video for the blind would eventually be marketed as audio versions of TV and movies that people could listen to during commutes, etc. Of course, that was before anyone installed DVD players in minivans. As an audio tool, podcasting has a strong appeal for blind technology lovers, but even some podcasting software is inaccessible.

I don't imagine that video-blogging will be far behind, though it will -- like text blogging -- tie people back to their computers (or at least their cell phones) and will be more limited. Both podcasting (and video-blogging, eventually) are more production-intensive, at least if they're done well. Of course, anyone can use a digital recorder (portable or computer microphone) to record sounds, create an mp3 and podcast. The tools for making and modifying sound files are increasingly robust and inexpensive (in her spare time, Woody's been digitizing her extensive record collection, starting with the children's albums); initially, her interview with Jeff was to be conducted over Skype and recorded directly on his computer, but the connection was weak that day.

Caleb McDaniel has already said a great deal about the historical analogues to blogging; podcasting probably should be compared to some combination of ham radio, microstations and short-wave broadcasting, all by way of internet radio. That's not what interests me, at the moment. It's taken some months since the release of the iPod to make it accessible to blind users. That's quite a lag in our time, but it's also possible to be amazed at how short a span it was: the technology -- hardware and software -- has progressed to the point where most of the tools necessary to make a mainstream technology accessible are already out there and there is sufficient expertise and will in the blind technology community, of which my wife is an active member, to bring it home.

The main historical issue that this brings to mind is the issue of lag. We talk about inventions and developments in technology often in a very shallow fashion, as if new techniques spread quickly and evenly. But some groups, some regions, etc., have greater access than others. Usually, when we do talk about the lags, it is in the context of competition -- military and economic -- and the ability of metropoles to use advantages to maintain control of peripheries, etc. Sometimes we talk about cultural modernity, and the"failure" of certain cultures to"keep up" with important new ideas and cultural patterns. But sometimes the lags are internal to a society, as well. Sometimes they are deliberate (think Amish, Mennonite, Creationist, etc.), and sometimes they are structural (disabilities, race, etc.) and sometimes they are accidental; and how people deal with them is a question that has not been well addressed outside of the context of race and post-colonialism.

p.s. Carnivalesque Last Call: get your Early Modern material to me by Monday. The only defense against being subject to my judgement is to self-nominate! dresner[at]hawaii[dot]edu